Will President Trump be impeached during his term?

**Stage 1 — Blind Analysis (ignore market prices)**

*Summary of reasoning:* The single dominant structural driver of a House impeachment vote is which party controls the House of Representatives after the 2026 midterms (and, to a much lesser extent, who controls it in any special elections between now and the end of the term). Historically, impeachments of President Trump occurred when the House was controlled by Democrats; absent a Democratic House majority, a formal impeachment vote is very unlikely because impeachment is inherently a partisan congressional process. Given current public-opinion indicators (high levels of opposition, references that a majority of likely 2026 voters support impeachment) and the typical midterm disadvantage for the president’s party, the probability the Democrats retake the House is materially above 50% in my view. Combine that with Trump's past two impeachments, ongoing investigations, and a persistent stream of new controversies that would give grounds and political cover for a House vote, and the chance of at least one impeachment before Jan 20, 2029 is meaningfully >50%.

*Quantitative decomposition (independent estimate):* - P(Democrats control House at some point before Jan 20, 2029) ≈ 60% — this captures winning the 2026 midterms or an unlikely special-election path plus the remote possibility of the very short window between Nov 2028 and Jan 20, 2029. - P(impeachment | Democratic House) ≈ 85% — Democrats would have strong incentives to impeach: political accountability, party base pressure, precedent (Trump was impeached twice prior), and multiple active lines of investigation; though they might decline if evidence is thin or political costs look high, the combination of pressure and precedent makes impeachment likely. - P(impeachment | Republican House) ≈ 5% — possible only if a major bipartisan scandal emerges that fractures the GOP or if a subset of Republicans defects; historically unlikely.

Combined: 0.60*0.85 + 0.40*0.05 = 0.51 + 0.02 = 0.53 => I round to an independent probability of **52%** to reflect residual uncertainty about the 2026 environment and Democratic willingness to act under different electoral margins.

Key additional blind-analysis points (not reflected in the numeric workup above): - Time window matters: impeachment requires time to investigate and bring articles. A Democratic takeover in 2026 gives plenty of time; a change only after Nov 2028 would leave a short period (Jan 3–Jan 20, 2029) that makes impeachment logistically harder. - The Senate outcome (removal) is irrelevant to the market question, but the expectation of certain acquittal may reduce Democratic appetite for impeachment in close House margins; conversely, symbolic impeachments are politically valuable. - Legal investigations (state and federal) are ongoing; an incriminating, public revelation between now and the midterms could both increase Democratic chances of regaining the House and raise willingness to impeach.

**Stage 2 — Market Calibration (compare to current market price Yes=0.63)**

The market currently trades at ~63% for 'Yes', roughly 11 points higher than my independent 52% estimate. Possible reasons the market is priced higher than my independent view:

- Traders may be putting heavy weight on *conditional certainty*: they might be implicitly modeling a near-certain impeachment if Democrats win the House (i.e., treating P(impeach | Dem) closer to 100%), which pushes the aggregate price up relative to my calibrated 85% conditional. - Recency and availability bias: vivid recent coverage of controversies and historical precedent (two prior impeachments) can cause traders to overweight similar outcomes. Markets with heavy partisan participation can skew prices toward one side if partisan traders trade based on convictions rather than odds. - Information asymmetry and event tail-risk: some traders may be pricing in the possibility of a major new scandal or legal development (e.g., a smoking-gun revelation) that meaningfully raises impeachment probability beyond what polls and structural models indicate. Markets sometimes implicitly price in low-probability, high-impact events more aggressively than neutral models. - Liquidity and momentum: high volume (413k contracts) suggests many participants have already pushed the price up; momentum traders can keep it biased upward even if new fundamental information is not present.

Is the market mispriced? Not obviously. The market’s 63% can be rationalized by only modestly different inputs (for example, P(Dem House)=65% and P(impeach|Dem)=90% yields ~63.5%). My independent read (52%) is more conservative on either the probability Democrats will take the House or on the conditional willingness to impeach. If you believe the polls and the partisan incentives are stronger than I do, the market price is reasonable. If you agree with my decomposition, the market may be overpricing 'Yes' by ~10–12 percentage points and could present a contrarian selling opportunity.

Trade implication (explicit): If you trust my independent assessment and risk appetite, the edge is to sell Yes (buy No) around 63% because expected value favors No at that price. If you put more weight on the market’s higher conditional probabilities and on potential surprise scandals, the market price is fair or cheap for Yes.